


Connected

by kokoligo (kokoliko)



Series: Captured [2]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, But he can sure as shit feel Hikaru enjoying himself, M/M, Not Beta Read, Sad Ending, Sai is asexual, The Author Regrets Everything, Underage Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 08:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokoliko/pseuds/kokoligo
Summary: Hikaru could feel Sai's emotions. As it turned out, Sai could feel Hikaru's, too.





	Connected

On May 5th, a year after he disappeared, Hikaru dreamt of him again.

In his dreams, Sai hardly ever talked. He didn't have to.

***

When he was still with Hikaru, they'd bickered, sure. They'd have superb fights, screaming matches, even. They could fight about anything-- a bad hand, the color of a sweater, the possibility of rain. They always sounded like they were sick of each other.

But every night, when Hikaru turned out the lights and pulled the covers up around himself, it was through their unspoken connection that he would ask Sai a question.

"Hey Sai."

"What is it?"

"Do you miss your old life?"

And Sai couldn't lie to him. He wasn't capable of it, not when his emotions were laid bare in Hikaru's heart for the boy to examine as closely as he wished.

"It's been a long time, so I don't miss it too much."

"But you miss holding the stones?"

"Yes."

"And you miss playing other people?"

Sai smiled. "I miss some of them more than others."

His half-blond student stretched idly along the length of the bed in his pajamas, then turned over to face the wall.

"Hey Sai, by the time I die...

"I hope I'll be good enough at playing you that you'll miss me."

Before he fell asleep, Hikaru could feel the echoes of fear and sadness gripping him, but couldn't yet understand what they meant.

***

Years later, when he was a little older, Hikaru began to ask more questions that Sai couldn't really answer.

"You don't feel love?"

"That's not quite right," Sai replied, sighing. "I can feel love. I just no longer feel... desire... of that kind."

"So you can feel *love* love? You can fall in love?"

"Yes, I can feel romantic love."

"How do you know?"

Sai didn't answer for a while. Hikaru peeked through tired eyes at the ghostly figure, who was sitting in seiza on the floor, lips taut and drawn together, eyes focused far away.

"It's happened to me before," he finally said.

"With who? What was it like?"

Again, Sai was silent, but Hikaru felt it for the first time-- a forceful tightening of his chest, like the heaviest sigh, that almost stole his breath.

***

Eventually Hikaru became ashamed of his body.

It started slowly, with him crying out in surprise, then embarrassment, as he woke up in the middle of a extremely confusing dream about Sai, orgasm washing over him, and realized he'd lost control...

Hikaru was sweating, and something felt sticky and cool between his legs. His face grew hot with the implication of what had transpired beyond his conscious thoughts; his eyes snapped immediately to Sai, who was in his usual meditative state in front of the goban, on the floor next to Hikaru's bed.

"Ah." He could hardly lie; he realized he'd woken up in the middle of moaning, and his face burned with shame. "Sorry about that."

Sai bowed his head, unwilling to meet the half-blond's eyes, but through the fall of long hair, Hikaru could see his lips drawn together in a soft but resolute line.

"It's natural. You couldn't help it."

But the weight settling in Hikaru's heart belied Sai's nonchalance.

Hikaru scrambled off the bed and practically ran down the hall to the bathroom, hoping Sai wouldn't be forced to catch up so soon, willing his heart to forget that feeling of sinking.

***

They didn't talk about it when Hikaru's evening runs to the bathroom became more frequent. Whenever he stared at his ceiling while willing himself to sleep, Hikaru tried to tamp down his body's reaction to thoughts he hoped weren't strong enough to get through to Sai-- random hard-ons in response to flashes like Akari's thighs filling out; Nase's breasts when she leaned over; and a few times-- pretty often, actually-- Touya Akira's eyes, or the briefly-exposed nape of his neck. Stuff like that happened all the time during the day, but nighttime was when he had nothing else to distract himself and had to stop it from getting any further through sheer force of will.

The unreleased frustration would build, and Hikaru often found himself resenting Sai's presence, lashing out at the man when he would beg Hikaru for a game after a long day at the Go Institute, after a full day where the insei picked each others' games apart to exhaustion. Every so often he would lose his temper and yell at Sai, wishing the ghost could go away and give him some peace and quiet and most of all, privacy.

One day, after snapping at Sai for whining about something trivial, Hikaru angrily pulled his covers over his head and tried to sleep, but his chest seized with an emotion that wasn't his. He exhaled restlessly and tried to ignore it.

Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, but the awful feeling wouldn't go away. It was soon accompanied by the sound of erratic, labored breathing.

Sniffling.

Hikaru realized Sai was crying; the majority of his anger dissolved into guilt.

At the forty-five-minute mark, the blond finally threw his blankets off and glared at the white-robed man sitting in seiza next to the bed. Sai looked up, startled by the sudden noise, face wet with tears.

Hikaru, still sporting a bit of a cross look, held the covers open and pointedly glanced down at the empty spot next to him, then back up at Sai. He could feel the tightness in his chest slowly loosen, replaced by something that felt like relief.

Sai removed his hat, adjusted his robes, and tentatively climbed in.

Hikaru dropped the covers through the ethereal ghost, leaving him lying on top of the bed, but Sai yawned and stretched out like a cat and pretended he was bedding down anyway. Hikaru was asleep within a few minutes, turned on his side, hands reaching out in a sleepy halfhearted attempt to touch the long, dark hair that pooled around Sai's face.

The discomfort plaguing his lower half would be amplified tenfold when he woke up in the morning (if it didn't wake him sooner with another mess to clean up). But it was bearable now that his body felt like it was filling up with warmth.

***

Many months later, the next time Hikaru awakened to his own body crying out with a desperate need for release, nerves on edge, he didn't think. Sai was lying on his side on the opposite side of the bed, as he often did now, but his back was turned.

Half-asleep, Hikaru slid one hand down the edge of his t-shirt, onto his bare stomach, down under the elastic of his boxer shorts, and took himself into his fist. He slid his hand back and forth until he felt himself swell; a few more quick thrusts and he was bucking and gasping and pulsing himself into his hand, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of pleasure that whited out his vision.

As the wave subsided, he felt his breathing return to normal, and his hand felt wet and thick with come. He cupped his palm to contain the area, then remembered who else was in the bed with him and felt another wave of emotion-- this time fear and shame at his conscious loss of control.

He snapped his eyes open and found Sai turning around to face him.

"Hikaru," he whispered softly, with a hint of wonder. The half-blond let out a sigh that was more like a gasp.

"I'm sorry," he choked out.

Sai responded with a quiet sigh that caught halfway through, like a laugh. And just like that, as their eyes met, Hikaru's maelstrom of emotions was overcome by a sense of comfort and well-being that made his skin tingle all over.

"Don't be."

The long-haired man reached out to him with a pale hand, fingers ghosting over Hikaru's flushed face, smiling a faint, and sad, but unmistakable Mona Lisa smile.

"Until now, I didn't realize how good you could make me feel."

If Hikaru could have reached out and pressed his own fingertips against Sai's face just then, he would have.

***

"Did you love Torajirou?"

They were both laid out side-by-side on the bed, which they started to do more and more often. Sai didn't look at him, but Hikaru could see, in the dim moonlight, the furrowing of a perfectly-shaped brow.

"I did."

"Were you *in* love with him?"

At this, the man paused, and Hikaru felt the stirrings of something deep in his chest-- echoes of pain, he surmised, having gotten familiar with the emotions Sai passed into him.

Pain or sadness, because for Sai they were one and the same.

"Not at first," Sai replied, face unreadable.

Something in Hikaru compelled him to continue. He pulled his covers around himself and pressed on.

"How did you fall in love with him? When did you know?"

Silence filled the room for what must have been a long time, because Hikaru was almost asleep by the time Sai spoke.

"I realized it on the day that he told me he felt like his heart was being torn out of his chest whenever I looked at him."

***

"Well," Hikaru said with a yawn, "did he feel the same way for you?"

The half-blond's heart stirred again with another echo of pain. For some reason, it was amplified by the quiet darkness, looming over both of them, squeezing his heart in two.

"...No."

***

Sai was more than happy to coach Hikaru through the pro exam, giving him pep talks, telling him to stretch. Hikaru exceeded all expectations, and even when he only barely eked out a win, his wins were devastating to those who witnessed them.

They were devastating to Sai as well, because he knew what Hikaru's terrifyingly rapid ascent meant. He once mentioned that he felt his power, his grip on the physical world, slowly fading. Hikaru had told him to shut up. He didn't believe the ghost. He didn't want to.

***

One warm night, Hikaru woke up shirtless to another urgent need for release, one so painful that it almost hurt for him to move. This time, Sai was facing him, eyes closed in repose.

Hikaru examined Sai's pale cheeks, framed by long eyelashes that could be mistaken for a girl's. He wished he could run his fingers through Sai's long dark hair; he always wondered whether it was as soft as it looked.

He reached down his shorts with one hand as carefully as he could. With his eyes still taking their fill of Sai's face, he brought himself to orgasm under the sheets, hoping his feelings could get through to the ghost.

As pleasure coursed through his body, he could feel Sai stirring awake in him, gray eyes blearily peeking open, lips parting in the dawning of realization.

The half-blond's breaths turned ragged, but his dark green eyes never left Sai's, whose gaze searched Hikaru's face with incredulity. Hikaru knew Sai was watching the blush that bloomed on his broadening chest and dusted his still-boyish cheeks, the sheen of sweat that painted his temples and forehead and tousled his hair.

He broke into a grin, panting slightly, as Sai rolled onto his back and let out a long breath. Sai's hair was fanned out on either side of them, and with a jolt of surprise, Hikaru noted that Sai's own cheeks were flushed pink. The visible sign of arousal sent him moaning into another wave of pleasure that forced his eyes shut.

As the ceiling and his self-awareness swam back into focus, Hikaru took stock of what he was feeling, trying to decipher Sai's emotions in the mess he'd created. But everything was jumbled, pleasure and pain and joy, sadness, regret, relief; trying to untangle each of their feelings only knotted them up further.

He decided to just ask.

"Sai," Hikaru murmured, rolling back onto his side to face the ghost once more. "How did that feel? Good?"

But Sai didn't speak; he kept his gaze carefully on the ceiling. Hikaru's heart ached in confusion upon seeing the tracks of tears making their way out of the corners of his eyes.

***

After that, Hikaru could feel Sai's misery grow. Hikaru's hastening adolescence gave him a short fuse; he was getting angry with the ever-present but inscrutable ghost too often, and was taking out his frustration towards Sai's impossible-to-reach talent on Sai's surprisingly fragile psyche.

Their fights became more frequent. They shared the bed less and less. Hikaru ignored Sai and threw himself into his studies. They only spoke during their games.

Whenever he glanced up and saw Sai looking back at him, Hikaru felt the brief flicker of something dance in his chest. But he smothered it as soon as he noticed, and soon enough, the flame went out.

***

When Hikaru finally passed the pro exam and celebrated with Waya and his friends well into the evening, he went home and dragged himself into bed triumphant and relieved, stones and formations swirling in his mind's eye.

But in the wee hours of the morning, he woke with a start, heart hammering. He saw Sai sitting seiza between the goban and his bed, keeping watch over him as usual.

Hikaru thought he had just had a nightmare, but when he met Sai's forlorn eyes, a fresh pang seized Hikaru's chest so thoroughly that it radiated agony throughout his entire body.

He stared at Sai, who winced at the sudden wave of emotion he had unwittingly unleashed. He'd clearly assumed the boy was asleep. The feeling was not unlike the one time Hikaru declared he had no desire to play go, when the resulting soul-crushing misery he felt from Sai at perhaps never being able to play again made him throw up.

But this misery was mutual, and Hikaru realized it stemmed from something far more intimate and unspoken between them. It was unspoken because the root was so clear--

"Oh," was all Hikaru could utter, eyes wide. "*Oh*."

Sai looked stricken.

"Go back to sleep," he said softly, but his voice and heart were tinged with panic. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay," Hikaru mumbled, rubbing his eyes as he turned over. "You can't help it."

In truth, he was forcing himself to slow his breathing and quash his own heart's traitorous response to Sai's. In truth, Hikaru's heart was only trying to leap out of his chest at the realization that Sai felt the same way.

But that wasn't a realization he was willing to admit, either. Because, in truth, he understood as well as Sai did that whatever they felt for each other was worse than unrequited; it was forbidden, impossible.

This love could only end in the worst possible pain.

***

Sai began to feel it then, the slow pulling apart of the time and space that had bent themselves over and around each other so he could, against all odds, exist. He held on fast to the games of go that Hikaru allowed him with an urgency that seemed to the teenager like overkill. They fought more, with Sai insisting that Hikaru listen, and with Hikaru denying that anything was wrong. 

Hikaru would climb into bed and crossly bid him good night before turning his back to the ghost and falling asleep, even though he knew through their shared connection that he was leaving Sai alone all night to ruminate, which was never good. It was far from ideal, but it was better than trying to explain to himself-- or, worse yet, out loud to Sai-- the jumble of feelings that he knew he shouldn't act on, so he refrained from even acknowledging them.

He didn't understand then that he didn't have all the time in the world with Sai. He shouldn't have assumed that he would be so fortunate as to spend a lifetime with Sai, the rest of his days.

These thoughts only surfaced in the sleepless days after that one fateful moment when he nodded off and Sai vanished.

***

For months, he searched everywhere.

It was terrible not knowing what had happened. Deep down, though, he knew. He had buried the seeds of his guilt and denial as far into his heart as he could manage, and they'd taken root and torn the ghost from his grasp as they grew like monstrous cancerous weeds into the sky.

***

The only place he didn't look was his hands.

Isumi had begged him to play a game, had gotten through his defenses and refusals to sit in front of him and put down a stone. With that, the floodgates opened; the formations and plays he'd studied flew into him like strong magnets once his polarity was switched back on.

Sai's techniques flowed from his hands out of their own accord, surrounding Isumi with such deftness that Hikaru didn't realize what he was doing until he set down a stone and suddenly saw the universe swirling into shape on the board.

Sai's go.

Hikaru's hands.

Their brilliance, their passion, entwined.

Hikaru let out a gasp as he understood where Sai had gone. His heart burst with joy-- even as it constricted with the agonizing pain that he'd only ever felt when Sai was looking straight at him.

He wiped his tears with the back of one hand, straightened in his seiza, and willed himself to continue.

***

He confessed to Touya later that day: this go was where Sai went, so he was going to keep playing for the rest of his life.

***

Hikaru still talks to him sometimes, in little mumbles before he falls asleep.

"Hey, Sai."

No answer.

"I still can't believe you're gone."

Nothing.

"You're a jerk, Sai."

Zip.

"...I guess I was a jerk too."

Zilch.

"What if I was just hallucinating after all."

Nada.

"You know... I wish I'd said it. So you knew for sure."

Silence.


End file.
